Think thermal cameras are a tad expensive at the moment? Good news – FLIR, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of thermal imaging equipment, sees costs going down in the future.

Andy Teich, who is head of FLIR’s commercial systems division, recently talked to Security Info Watch about how thermal cameras are similar to GPS systems, and how that technology started out as being extremely expensive before innovations in the field caused prices to be lowered and the technology to be widely embraced by consumers.

"That four-phase transition of a technology from military to consumer, you’ll see that same thing play out with thermal imaging and we, as a company, have been leading that transition and will continue to do so," he said. "We have significant investment in technology and equipment underway right now to make the next step in lowering costs to enable (the creation) of that lower cost technology that users in the security space are going to be interested in."

FLIR recently acquired Canada-based security firm Lorex, with the aim of working together with the security company to develop new, more affordable thermal imaging camera solutions.

"It plays into our strategy of not where we are today, but where we are headed," Teich said of the acquisition. "We’ve told our investors for some time and have been executing along the lines of a continual reduction of the costs of thermal imaging technologies with the ultimate goal of providing thermal imaging technology to a very broad base of users at very low cost."

Currently, thermal cameras are expensive because the components that go into creating them are expensive in themselves. One of the most expensive parts of the thermal imaging camera is the creation of the thermal lens, which allows the camera to see the infrared radiation it detects.

Back in August we reported that a company called Fraunhofer were busy developing new, innovative methods for reducing the cost of constructing thermal lenses. This research could have significant effects on the industry as a whole, as reducing the cost of thermal lenses ultimately will drive the prices of constructing thermal cameras down as well.

FLIR’s move of buying security firm Lorex is the first stepping stone towards thermal cameras being used more commonly in the security industry. Thermal technology that is used for security purposes is a highly effective maintenance solution. Thermal cameras work use infrared rather than visible light, which means they are much more effective at seeing the thermal signatures of intruders that may go totally unnoticed by conventional security equipment.

Speaking about the merger, Andy Teich said: “"As we produce this lower-cost thermal imaging technology, we believe that can be injected into those verticals where Lorex is currently active and offer the Lorex/Flir brands a highly differentiated product that can drive a lot of growth.”

"From a technology standpoint, it’s kind of interesting. While today Lorex has nothing to do with thermal imaging, they do sell a lot of cameras that have 'night vision' capability using infrared illuminators. From a technology standpoint, we bring to Lorex now a different way to image in darkness and a much more effective means to imaging in darkness. Ultimately, we will be able to bring the Lorex and Digimerge customer bases a true 24/7 imaging capability, which they do not have today. Similarly, on the other side of the equation, Flir is an imaging company. We’re very focused on imaging in the thermal spectrum, but we do today sell a lot of visible cameras. I think you will see, across all of our business lines, a greater offering of a combination-based system where the user is getting a combo thermal/visible solution, which we believe provides the best of both worlds."